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Re: Need another left the factory date
Posted: Sun May 29, 2022 11:51 am
by AmberolaAndy
phonogfp wrote: Sat May 28, 2022 9:44 am
MATTROSE94 wrote: Sat May 28, 2022 12:55 am
BTW, when did the last Edison Amberola 30s roll off the assembly line? I would guess 1929, but it is possible that they were discontinued a few years earlier once cylinder sales began to decline.
Frow cites wholesale movement of Amberola 30s at only one or two a week after 1926, but apparently they were available right up to October 1929. No doubt there were substantial numbers of these machines in West Orange inventory which sat for years before being sold.
George P.
What about the Amberola 60 and 80? If I recall they weren’t made for the US market? Maybe the 60 was?
Re: Need another left the factory date
Posted: Sun May 29, 2022 1:21 pm
by phonogfp
MATTROSE94 wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 11:34 am
Thanks for the information! My Amberola 30 I suspect was purchased around 1920, as the last patent date on the label tag is 1918 and most of the cylinders that came with it were made between 1912 and 1923, with only two cylinders in the low 5,000 series included with it. BTW, what is the last patent date commonly found on the Amberola 30 label tags? I might be able to narrow down when it was made based on the label tag patent information.
Data plate patent dates are a pretty inaccurate way of dating phonographs. On page 181 of Frow there's a list of dates and production benchmarks to help with dating up to approx. 1923.
AmberolaAndy wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 11:51 am
What about the Amberola 60 and 80? If I recall they weren’t made for the US market? Maybe the 60 was?
On pages 184-186 of Frow, he discusses the Amberola 60 and 80. They rarely show up in the US, but more often in the UK and Australia. Whether they were manufactured exclusively for overseas markets is doubtful. I'm sure Edison would have sold 60s and 80s to whomever wanted them, but by 1926 (60) and 1928 (80) the cylinder market was virtually dead in the US so demand would have been very small.
George P.
Re: Need another left the factory date
Posted: Tue May 31, 2022 7:55 pm
by MATTROSE94
phonogfp wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 1:21 pm
MATTROSE94 wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 11:34 am
Thanks for the information! My Amberola 30 I suspect was purchased around 1920, as the last patent date on the label tag is 1918 and most of the cylinders that came with it were made between 1912 and 1923, with only two cylinders in the low 5,000 series included with it. BTW, what is the last patent date commonly found on the Amberola 30 label tags? I might be able to narrow down when it was made based on the label tag patent information.
Data plate patent dates are a pretty inaccurate way of dating phonographs. On page 181 of Frow there's a list of dates and production benchmarks to help with dating up to approx. 1923.
AmberolaAndy wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 11:51 am
What about the Amberola 60 and 80? If I recall they weren’t made for the US market? Maybe the 60 was?
On pages 184-186 of Frow, he discusses the Amberola 60 and 80. They rarely show up in the US, but more often in the UK and Australia. Whether they were manufactured exclusively for overseas markets is doubtful. I'm sure Edison would have sold 60s and 80s to whomever wanted them, but by 1926 (60) and 1928 (80) the cylinder market was virtually dead in the US so demand would have been very small.
George P.
I looked at the Frow book and my Amberola 30 was likely made sometime in 1918, as the base moulding is held to body with 8 wood screws and the winding crank escutcheon is still present. Also, the last patent date on it is May 7th 1918, which might indicate that it was likely manufactured sometime in the Summer or Fall of 1918 and purchased by the original owner around that time.